I have done it myself and I can say it helps immensely. When I sit still (ie meditate) I get closer to God. I hear His guidance. I feel His presence. I receive His healing. I highly recommend meditation to everyone.

Having a daily moment of stillness also helps me get centered and ready to tackle whatever the day brings.

If you've never done it, here's how to start: sit on a comfortable place, put on some earplugs if there is noise nearby, and try not to think about anything. Just focus on your breath: how it feels when you inhale and your body expands, then how it feels when you exhale and your body contracts. Focus your thoughts and your mind only on your breathing. If other thoughts come to your mind, gently and lovingly bring your focus back to your breathing. Try to do that for about 15 min. It is helpful to close your eyes so that you remove the visual distractions in front of you.
Try it for a few days or weeks. Hopefully you will notice a difference in how your mind behaves. It will also help you gain control over it.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Bible verse of the day: “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.
Luke 21:14-15

Monday, September 15, 2014

Today I want to talk about a revelation I had a while ago: live in trust, in all aspects of your life.

Before I talk about living in trust, however, I want to talk about 2 ways we don't live in trust.

Trust vs. Control

The first one is to live trying to control your fate.

For the past 4 years I had been living trying desperately to control my fate:

trying to control my professional fate by looking desperately for a job - sending 100s of resumes to all the job postings I could find

trying to control my financial fate by accepting a low-paying job - because I was desperate for any income.

continuing to try to control my financial fate by working tirelessly on side projects - hoping they would become more profitable than my current low-paying job.

trying to control the fate of a relationship by trying to get a person close to me at any cost - I even tried bribing them by promising to pay for their tuition if they came to study where I live.

continuing to try to control my financial fate by looking desperately for cheaper places to live - looking at real estate listings every single day, calculating how much I would pay for taxes, transportation, etc.

When you live in control, you are not living in trust. You don't trust that that your future will be positive unless you take control.

Trust vs. Fear

The second way that we don't live in trust is when we live in fear.
Fear is related to control.
I see fear as an attempt to control the future.

A few months ago, I used to live in fear:

fear that the person who had drifted away from me would never come back - so I kept trying to control them and bring them back.

fear that I would not be worthy of love (from myself and others) if I didn't keep my house sparkling clean 100% of the time - so I spent all my free time cleaning and doing other house chores.

fear of getting some deadly disease - so I would freak out at any strange symptom I would have and run to the doctor.

Getting out of the pit

The stress from all that fear and need to control snowballed into anxiety and panic attacks. I brought myself out of that horrible emotional state with a lot of hard work - and no medication.

One of the main pillars of my healing was focusing on myself. Instead of trying to control my exterior circumstances, I shifted my attention to understanding what was happening in my mind.

After I understood the fears behind my need to control, I then worked on changing my negative thoughts and behaviours.

That boosted my self-esteem, and I had more consistent faith. I felt confident that whatever happened in my life, I would be ok. I would survive.

And that's when everything started changing:

When I stopped trying to get a person to love me (and instead focused on loving myself) they started showing me love.

When I stopped trying to get love from performing chores (and loved myself for who I am regardless of performance) I suddenly had free time to enjoy life.

When I stopped running to the doctor to get a sense of security (and kept challenging my catastrophic thinking), I felt as healthy as a horse.

Living in Trust

Then, a while ago, I realised the connection between all the changes listed above: I was living in trust. And when, I did that, I finally got what I wanted. I didn't get it by trying to control my circumstances, but rather by trusting [God] that things would work out in my favour.I focused on love, inner peace and personal growth, and the rest took care of itself [or, God took care of the rest].
Following that, I had a revelation: I should trust God in every aspect of my life. Instead of trying to control my circumstances and trusting that my efforts will bring me what I want, it's better to live in Love and trust that God will bring me what I want.

If I want a better job, I should meet people in my network and talk to them about what I want. Then trust that God will use the people in my life to bring me a better job.

If I want to improve my financial situation, I should talk to people about what I would like my life to be like. Then let God work through them to give me suggestions or even put me in touch with someone who wants to help me financially.

If I want to get someone close to me, I should focus on defining what kind of relationship I want. Then trust that God will put the right person (possibly not the one I originally asked for) in my life.

If I want to give myself love, I should do what makes me happy. Then trust that I will be in such a good mood that chores won't feel as stressful or time consuming.

If I want to believe that I'm healthy, I should focus on all the times the doctor said I was fine. Then trust that I am really ok.

The key is focusing on love and peace, and trusting that God/the Universe will work things out in your favour. When you live in fear of losing something, it is much harder to get what you want. When you live in peace and trust that things will work out, they usually do.

So next time you are afraid, just focus on love and inner peace, and trust that things will work out.

Luke 17:6 : "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say
to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it
would obey you"

Matthew 17:20: "(...) if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this
mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be
impossible for you."

But what does that mean? Like me,
there are probably many people who have asked/prayed for something and
believed in it, but not received. Why? The Bible seems to say that only a
small amount is enough.

Today I will share 2 different interpretations of what that means, and why we don't see the results we ask for.

Interpretation #1 - The Problem is the Unbelief

According to Andrew Wommack'steaching, having faith the size of a mustard seed means that even if you have a little faith, that is enough.
Additionally,
he says that everybody has the same amount of faith. According to
Andrew's teaching, when God made us, he put the same amount of faith in
everyone. We all have faith the size of a mustard seed.
The reason why some people see more results (ie, what they ask for comes true), is because they have less unbelief.
According to Andrew, as you grow in the Lord, you remove your unbelief, and your wishes will more easily come true.

Interpretation #2 - Quality and not Quantity

Watch this video from 11:27 to 17:38.

What a beautifully emotional and passionate segment!
In it, Joe Amaral explains that it is not the
quantity of your faith that matters (ie, is it big or as small as a
mustard seed), but rather the quality (are you as strong and tenacious as the mustard plant?).
Besides explaining, he also does a wonderful job of motivating the audience to be strong. If you need faith and encouragement, do watch that segment!

Criticism

I understand Andrew's point, but at the same time, I see unbelief as lack of faith. In my opinion, he is still saying that the issue is the lack of faith. What he calls faith is the constant faith (as in "he is a man of faith") and what he calls unbelief is a temporary lack of faith (maybe due to stress, fear, etc).

For Joe Amaral, my criticism is regarding the requirement of understanding the culture in order to understand the passage.I believe it is important to understand the culture of Jeseus, but that alone doesn't help us fully understand what the Bible meant. One of the reasons why Christianity has so many denominations is because there can be many different interpretations to the same passage of the Bible - even after understanding Jesus' culture.

Some more food for thought:

Do we ever fully understand a culture? Even when we were brought up in a certain culture,
we sometimes only fully understand it once we travel and spend time in
another one. Then what about a culture that is 2000 years and many
continents removed from us?

We will never clearly know what
Jesus meant because He is not here to explain it to us. The Bible was
written by the apostles (if I'm not mistaken) many years after Jesus gave the lessons. It was also written in one language, then translated into a few different languages before it was translated to English. A lot can be lost through time and translation, including cultural nuances.

Conclusion

I believe both interpretations are in fact complimentary. Having lack of unbelief (Andrew's interpretation) means being strong in your faith (Joe's interpretation). In other words, it means striving towards consistent faith.

My message is the following: be as persistent and as strong as a mustard plant, by working on building a consistent faith inside of you.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

22)
Dave is a golfer, and he seeks it. He reads about golf, he practices,
he watches TV shows about it, etc. He seeks it, he pursues it.

Revelation:
that's what "being passionate" about something means. Dave seeks it
because he is passionate about it. I seek God because I am passionate
about inner peace. So my job (since in this culture your work has to be
what you are passionate about) should be a God seeker. (Lord, thank You
for that revelation. I pray that You bring me even more clarity on
that.)

23) Nobody has anything that they first didn't get from God.

All your skills and talents were first given to you by God.

24) We are not the owners of anything. We are only the stewards of God's things.

25) This was said by the man in the white suit (didn't get his name, will try to get it tomorrow):

There's a hole in everyone's heart that only God can fill.

If you fill it with anything other than God, it becomes a black hole: no matter what you put in there, it is never enough.

13) When you wake up in the morning, before you even get your feet out of the bed, say "He is here", and feel God's presence.

14) There is nothing in your life that He is not delighted to fix.

15) Hebrews 1:3: "(...)He upholds the universe by the word of his power."

He
keeps the sun rising and shining every day, He keeps the sun from not
shining too much so as to give us a terrible sunburn. He keeps gravity,
electricity working.

It was so awesome to
hear that because that has always been my definition of God (and one of
the reasons why I see no conflict between religion and science - that's
topic for another post). I still have it in my Facebook: Nature is my
God. - also subject for another post.

16) [For 6 years, every month, Joyce needed a miracle of $40 to pay her bills. And it always happened.]

17) Story about 3 men in a furnace. Then the person who had trapped them in the furnace turned it up 7x higher. How many of you feel like you are in a furnace and instead of getting better it just got 7 times hotter?
The men got freed from the bondage (the chains that were holding them
prisoners) inside the furnace (it melted the chains away). Lesson: your
furnace will eventually melt the chains and make you free.

9) God has got you where you are (school, neighbourhood, workplace, etc) for a reason. You are needed there.

10) Every time someone speaks your name, they are calling you what your name means.

For example, if your name is Victoria, when someone calls you, they are saying you are victorious.

11) Pray to know God more and more each day.
Pray
to experience him, to recognise when He is working in your life - even
in the little moments when He just lets you know He is there. For
example, when little coincidences happen in your life.
[Joyce
was thinking about what to teach in this conference, while moving some
papers, and one of them fell from the shelf and when she picked it up
she noticed it talked about anxiety. So she knew that God was telling
her that that was the topic.]

I have
those moments all the time. Sometimes it happens to tell me that I
shouldn't do something. In those cases, I even talk to God. I tell him
"ok, I got Your message, I won't do that."

12) Put your trust in God, not in other people or yourself.

I can't put my trust in me because sometimes even I can't believe what I do.
Sometimes I screw up. Sometimes I think "how could I do that?", "what was I thinking?"

What a blessed day! I feel so grateful and joyful to have attended Joyce Meyer's conference this evening!

Here are my "raw" notes. The items in italic are my own comments.

The show opened with a story about a Brazilian girl (how appropriate - thanks, God). She talked about her struggles and many of them were also mine (thanks again, O, Wise One!). And the way she talked about her feelings and expressed them was very similar to the way I see and express mine (Oh, Mighty One, thank you again!)

1) Be faithful in the little things, and some day you will be made king over much.
If you have a bicycle and you wish you could afford a car, take good care of your bicycle.
Don't curse it or complain about it.
How can God give you a car if you can't even take care of a bicycle?

2) Don't look to people to provide for you [financially], look for God.

3) (about your purpose in life) When you are not doing anything [while you haven't yet fulfilled/found His purpose for you], God is doing something in you.

4) (about moving) If you are where you don't want to be, don't leave until God releases you.

This goes straight to all my fellow TCKs around the world, who think moving will fix their sense of belonging.

I always knew that. I always felt like there was something I needed to resolve before I moved out of Brazil. And it happened just as I felt: the moment I had found a sense of belonging there, and felt like I could be 100% happy there, I got my visa to come to Canada.

5) Whatever your dreams are, God will give you something little to hold on to first.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

I hear Joyce Meyer and Andrew Wommack say things like "you have to fill yourself with the word" and "you need to study the bible every day". And I'm sure other Christin preachers and equivalent authorities of other religions say something similar. Their argument is that you need to read the Bible by yourself (and not just listen to their teachings), because when you read it by yourself, you will have your own revelations.

At first that advice bothered me. I would think "are you saying that I will only grow spiritually if I read the bible? That is wrong! What about people from other religions? Plus, I've grown so much without reading it. I've had many revelations on my own".

But then I read Pastor Chris' devotional of July 25. He said "what they [people who are facing difficulties] need is a Word-diet. They have to listen to God's Word (...) until the Word gets rid of their wrong mindset and reprograms them aright for success".

And I realised how much time I spend listening and reading religious teachings, and how I depend on them, how much I yearn for those moments in my daily routine and how much they help me.

So I have concluded that when they say "you should read the Bible", what they mean is that you should take time to study/meditate on religious teachings. Listen to and read people who talk about religion/spirituality, and think about what they are saying and how it applies to you. What can you learn from that? How does that help you?

The basic principle is simple: when you flood your mind with positive ideas and thoughts, you can't help but have faith that God/the Universe is taking care of you and everything will be ok. It is a great way to ward off anger, depression or anxiety.

At some point I also heard Andrew say "you have to saturate yourself with the Word". And he made that exact same point I have just made: when you fill yourself with positive thoughts and words, there is no room for negative and destructive thoughts.

And then as I had a conversation about this with my dad, he mentioned that all those activities (reading and listening to religious teachings) are feeding the soul. Just like we need to feed our body, we also need to feed our soul. When we feed our soul, we find peace. And when we have inner peace, it is easier to receive revelations (which is what Andrew and Joyce want us to have).

Therefore, when they say "read the Bible" I now hear "feed your soul with positive words".

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Lesson of the day: you want to help so many people and solve so many problems, but you are just one person. You can't do it all alone. You need to get help from other people and/or join efforts with them.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Lesson of the day: What is your purpose in life? use your body and mind for something good [as opposed to just making money]. Think about what you'd like to do to make the world a better place. Focus on what you'd like to do to bring love, joy and peace to other people [as opposed to bringing money or closure to you].

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Lesson of the day: remember your successes and how you got there. If you have a setback, stay calm and repeat the same strategy. You will overcome it again. And it will be easier because you've done it before.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Lessons of the day:
1) Putting God first might not make sense from a rational point of view, but it is the most rewarding option.
2) The love you feel for God should always be stronger than the love you feel for anyone else.

Another activity that really helped me was to have dates with myself. I know it sounds strange, but believe me, dating yourself is a wonderful experience.

If you think it's too awkward to do that in public (for example, you'd feel lame going out to a restaurant by yourself), just do it at home.

Would you like to have someone cook you a special meal? Go ahead and cook it for yourself. Clean and organize your dining room as if you had a guest. Set the table nicely. Put on some flowers and some candles. Prepare the table for yourself as if you were someone else, someone who loves you dearly. Enjoy the meal and appreciate the love you put in preparing this meal for yourself.

You know yourself better than anybody else. So it will be very easy to please yourself. Do exactly what you know will make you happy (choose your favourite dish, put your favourite flowers in a vase, etc).

Would you like to have a nice romantic bath with candles, rose petals and bubbles? Why not! Set the mood, prepare your bathroom, light the candles, put on a nice relaxing music. Enjoy the fragrant smell of the candles, petals or bath foam. Lay there and appreciate the loving effort you put into making yourself happy.

What other self-dating ideas can you think if? What is your idea of a great date? What would you like to have someone do for you? Think about it and make it happen.

Treat yourself to something nice, then enjoy the love and kindness of that gesture.

This is a true story experienced by a friend of mine. Some names and details have been changed to preserve people's privacy and/or because I don't remember them very precisely.

The Story

John lived in a farm with his parents in the countryside of Ontario, Canada. One day, a Franciscan Monk came to their door asking for food and a place to stay for one night.

His parents were kind people, so they said "of course". They gave him a nice dinner and a bed to sleep on.

The monk told them that he had been travelling throughout the country, on his way to China.

Fransican monks take a vow of poverty. So they are not allowed to accumulate money.

He depended on the kindness of strangers to have a place to sleep and food to eat.

He told John's family that in every day of his trip he had always had a place to sleep and food to eat.

The Lessons

After telling me that story, John commented that the world is a much kinder place than we imagine.

For me, there is an even deeper lesson to be learned from the traveling monk: he trusted God so much that he was willing to travel without any food, money or accommodation arrangements.

The monk had a blind faith in God that few of us do. He believed without a doubt that God would provide him with food and shelter wherever he went.

Reflections

Would you be able to do the same?

Are you capable of surrendering that much control of your life to God?

Notice how his faith had worked and he had always had food and shelter.

It takes a lot of courage to give up that much control of your life to God. But if the monk can do it, so can you.

Disclaimer: This post should not be taken as an instruction to anyone to throw away all they've got and go traveling like a beggar. If you decide to do that it is by your own choice. You have free will and are responsible for yourself. By reading this article you agree that you will not sue me if you decide to do that and then run into problems.

Conclusion

The message I want to convey with this post is that we should stop trying to control our fate so much. Instead, give the control to God and have faith that everything will work out.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

About 4 years ago, I was going through a very tough time emotionally and stumbled across this teaching:

First, I need to clarify one of terms I will use in this article. The speaker in the video uses the termbiblical faith. I prefer using consistent faith because its not attached to any religion. Therefore, even people who are not religious can still understand what I want to say - and hopefully create a better life for themselves after reading this article.

Ok, now we can start.

Types of Faith

Basically, there are 2 types of faith: circumstantial faith and consistent faith.

Circumstantial Faith: you have more or less hope based on your circumstances.

In other words, if your life is going great and you don't have any major problems, it's easy for you to hope for the best, and to have faith that your future will be great. You are very confident in your ability to overcome any problems in the present and the future.

On the other hand, if you are going through challenges (loss of job, end of relationship, etc) you have less faith or hope that things will work out. You don't see how things can get better. You feel hopeless and lost. You don't believe in your ability to overcome problems.

Consistent Faith: you have the same amount of faith, regardless of what is happening in your life right now. You trust that things will work out, regardless of how hard things seem at the moment. If you are going through life challenges, you believe that somehow, in some way, things will work out in the end. It's not to say that you won't feel afraid, but you feel confident that things will end up ok.

Self-Esteem and Faith

Most people who have a low self-esteem, operate in circumstantial faith. If life is good, they believe in themselves and believe that they can overcome their problems. But if a problem arises, they lose confidence in themselves. If they are criticized or put down, they immediately loose their confidence. The moment they feel unloved by one person, their whole world comes crumbling down.

People who have high self esteem, are not so easily affected by their circumstances. Independently of what happens to them, they remain in a consistently positive emotional state. If they just ended a relationship, sure they do feel sad. But they know that they still have other people in their lives who love them. They keep things in perspective. Their world doesn't fall apart. (It took me many years and many break-ups to get to that point!)

What is the difference? The person with high self-esteem does not let their circumstances dictate their self-confidence and hope. Sure they also feel sad and discouraged, but they believe that everything will turn out ok in the end. The stronger a person's self-esteem, the better they are remaining hopeful in times of trouble.

Strength through Religion

I have met people who have consistent faith. They were also very religious. I was attracted to them for their kindness, and had opportunities to witness their hopefulness. Even though they were going through major problems in their lives, they had a smile on their face. They had no doubts that things would end up working out ok.

For example, I once met a baptist lady who had just been diagnosed with skin cancer. However, she continued to enjoy life, laugh and encourage her friends (me being one of them). She faced the diagnosis with courage and faith that everything would be fine. Her faith was blind, she never even questioned (at least not on conversations with me) whether things would turn out ok in the end. She just knew that they would.

I always admired people like. I admired them for their courage, and always wished I could be the same way. When I found the teaching above, it helped me understand the difference between myself and them: I had a very low-self esteem and operated in circumstantial faith.

Throughout my life, I have strengthened my self-esteem with self-analysis, journaling, reading about psychology, etc. When I found that video, it gave me a hint that maybe there was another way to do that. I could have improve my self-esteem through religion.

Therefore, I'm sharing this because it might help someone who is looking for more faith and more hope.

Conclusion

The point is: try to have more consistent faith instead of circumstantial faith.

I'm not saying it's easy. But if you can understand the difference, and start trying to switch from circumstantial faith to consistent fath, then you have already taken a huge step.

Monday, June 30, 2014

Sometimes a conscious decision to focus on God, is all it takes to hear a revelation from Him.
How to make that decision? say out loud "stop" and immediately start doing a mindfulness activity (I will post some of my own mindfulness techniques later)

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The closer you are to God, the shorter the time will be between you asking for your desires and they coming true.
Tip 1: Use that time as a measure to know how close you are to Him.
Tip 2: To get closer to Him, always be thankful for when the time was shorter than you expected.

When you are feeling rejected and unloved, turn to yourself.
Give yourself the love that you've been craving for.
A great way to do that is to buy yourself flowers. It sounds silly, but it worked for me.

Besides silly it can also be fun.
I had fun at the flower shop, pretending that I was buying them for someone else.
I looked at the options and asked myself "what would she like?".

While I was paying, the florist asked if I wanted to write a note.
I gladly accepted.
I had fun again writing myself some loving words.
When you are feeling sad, unloved or rejected, you know better than anybody else what you would like to hear.

It can also be a secret.
Nobody else in that flower shop knew that I was buying the flowers for myself.
It made the activity even more special and intimate.

As I crossed the street, smiling and holding the flowers on my hand, the feeling of "secret" and "special" continued.
Nobody else on that street knew that I was giving myself a wonderful gift.

Try buying yourself flowers one day, and see how much love you can give yourself :)

About the author

Maira is passionate about Spirituality and the human search for Inner Peace. She is interested in facilitating others' spiritual growth and self-development. Some of her works include career coaching, mentoring public speakers, and helping suicidal teenagers online. She is currently the Social Media Manager for two small churches in Ontario, Canada.